


Gratitude

by Occula



Category: U2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 14:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12278247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Occula/pseuds/Occula
Summary: Awake early, Adam reflects on his newfound contentment.





	Gratitude

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story right before my boyfriend J and I went on a vacation during which we'd discussed getting married. I kind of thought we would, and it led to this story. As it turns out, we got married three years later instead, but I'm still pleased with how this came out. first posted on LJ Oct. 3, 2003.

Bright morning light slants into my bedroom and over the foot of the bed. When I wake, I like to lie looking at you for a time.

It’s been long enough that we’re growing comfortable, able to tell one another how much this all means to us without worrying that we’ll frighten one another. Yet it’s still new enough that each morning I wake with you seems like a gift, each day a surprise and a treasure.

I’ve spent my life feeling I’m a different age than my own. As a child I felt like an alien in children’s culture; I didn’t understand my peers. As a younger adult I thought I was wise and worldly; later when I should have been settling down I acted like a juvenile. And following _that_ dreadful phase, I felt I’d gone directly into middle age.

You’ve given me two gifts in that regard. You make me comfortable in my own skin, my own years, my own self. More comfortable than I’ve ever felt before. At the same time, you bring me rejuvenation in the form of joy. The dizzy whirl of becoming yours, the pure happiness of _being_ yours, make everything feel fresh and clean. Thus I feel young, finally.

So I lie quietly and look. You’re on your back, head turned slightly toward me. I smile a little, thinking how few people ever see you sans chapeau. Your dazzling eyes are handsome even when closed; my gaze rests briefly on nose, lips, chin. I know each feature so well, but lately I’ve been seeing them at new angles, at a new closeness, and wearing expressions I’d never imagined.

You swept me off my feet, love.

If I were a cat, I’d curl up on your chest with my head tucked under your chin.

Grinning, I shake my head at my own foolishness and slip out of bed as gently as I can, restoring the covers around you. I locate spectacles and sweatpants, refresh myself a bit in the loo, and amble down to the kitchen. I love this room in the mornings. The warmth of the tile, the muted glow of the stainless steel, the order you’ve motivated me to impose. I start coffee, then bring in the paper and perch at the counter with a mug.

It’s all bad news, of course. First the global. War here, violence there. Hunger, disease. Unrest. Protests. The same headlines day after day, generation after generation, it seems. I take a break, folding the section over, when my coffee’s just cool enough to drink. I like to curl both hands around the cup, savoring the aroma, steaming up my glasses. You like to accuse me of being a sensualist to the smallest degree.

Nationally, locally, the smaller bad news affects me more than did the global crises. They seem more real. A house burns to the ground and an elderly man and his cats are overcome. A matron dies in traffic. A desperate woman kills her abuser. A child drowns.

I feel guilty sometimes. Often. I think I’m a good man; I give to charity, perhaps not half my fortune, but far more than most in my country earn each year. Still, I’m disgustingly wealthy. All I have to complain of are the inconveniences of fame. Occasionally I’m intruded upon, or my mansion draws the odd tourist who can’t make it all the way out to Bono’s.

Boo hoo.

I should pay more attention, give more, do more, _be_ more.

I sigh and fold the paper, turning it to hide the worst of the worst. I pour more coffee and stand pensive, looking out the windows over the sink.

As with the news, my thoughts wander from large to small. I’m fabulously wealthy and I’m famous. But more pertinent to me are things like my health, physical and mental. My sobriety. The feelings I get from the work I do and the people I do it with.

My family.

My friends.

You.

I struggle with the concept of gratitude. I rarely consciously think in terms of being “grateful” for all I have, because I don’t believe in a higher being or divine source toward which gratitude should be directed. I’ve worked; I’ve been lucky; things have come to me. I suppose I’m grateful to a kind universe, grateful to abstract good fortune. It’s odd to feel grateful without an object.

You come into the kitchen with your usual quietness and slip your arms around me.

Definitely I’m grateful to you for loving me.

I turn in your arms and rest my head on your shoulder, my arm about your waist. I’m grateful to you. For you. For our safety, our serenity, our luck, our love.

“All right, love?”

I straighten and nod. Your heartwrenching hazels sparkle at me, provoking me to smile.

“I was just thinking how lucky I am,” I said. “How happiness is … can be in the small things.”

As always, you understand me better than I express myself. You pull me, by the drawstrings of my sweatpants, forward into a kiss. One that grows serious in a moment.

You draw back just enough to kiss the tip of my nose, then my chin. “You got up too early,” you murmur, smoothing your hands over the skin of my back. “You should definitely come back to bed for a few more minutes.”

I grin. “Just a few minutes? Oh, ye of little faith.”

Just two men, half dressed and tousled, fingers intertwined. Just two friends, smiling at one another. Just two lovers, teasing, happy, leading one another back upstairs. Just this, just these moments. These beginnings. Something so beautiful I can barely write about it, something so precious I can hardly say how highly I value it.

Just you.


End file.
